It is known that in AOM you will not be able to build any town centers except above settlements. Now the TC is a rather important building in the game, right? It creates villagers, heroes, uh...villagers. Anyway, it is absolutely essential, early during the game and less important but quite afterwords.
Since you will not be able to recover it after it is destroyed how important is the overall effect it has to the game?
You still have the ability to build a new one in settlements (if you havent already), but it's different b/c the first TC is the heart of your base. All military & economical buildings are placed around it.
Ofcourse it doesnt matter from WHERE you collect rescources, but nevertheless, SM (settlements) are secondary TCs despite their importance in a game they cannot replace one. They will be far away and much more vurlnable to attacks. If the enemy manages and "steals" your SM or merely cuts off communication with it, the game for you is pretty much over.You will remain constant during the game, with a fixed ammount of villagers & pop limit, and a steady amount of incoming rescources, unable to respond, while the enemy is increasing in power.
The most important after effect is that you cannot replace lost villagers. Thus villagers become the primary aim in attacks and not your army.
A loss of a TC in AOM is MUCH MORE effective than in AOK. It closes to the effect it had in Red Alert 2, where if you lost the MCV? the game was to a great extend over for you. Though in RA2 you couldnt continue building while in AOM you can, but the overall after effect is pretty close.
The earlier it happens the worse, but even if it happens later on, automatically the weight of importance fall directly on your SMs. And how easy is it to protect them from distance (if you have any?)
-Another aspect for the importance of a SM.-